Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Nahum · About this commentary
Are You Better Than No-Amon?
Nahum 3:8-13
8 Are you better than No-Amon, who was situated among the rivers, who had the waters around her, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? · WEB
Assyria had itself destroyed an unassailable city; Nahum simply asks whether Nineveh is a better case.
The taunt argues from precedent, and its force is that Assyria supplied the precedent. No-Amon — Thebes, the Egyptian capital on the Nile — sat among the waters with the river as her rampart, and Egypt and Cush were her boundless strength. Every advantage Nineveh claimed, Thebes had held first.
Verse 10 states what happened, in terms Assyrian armies had made routine: carried into captivity, her children dashed at the head of every street, lots cast for her honored men. The atrocity described is one Assyria committed, now read back as its own future. So verse 11: you also will seek a stronghold — the same word that in Nahum 1:7 belonged to Yahweh, and the search fails because it is aimed elsewhere. Verse 12 makes the fortresses fig trees dropping ripe fruit at a shake.
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